A 25-year-old man was allegedly sold a ‘stolen Dell laptop’ worth Rs 49,000 on Paytm website.

PayTM Mall spokesperson said the matter was being investigated and appropriate action will be taken against the seller.(Reuters Illustration)

A 25-year-old commodity broker, residing in Sector 46, was allegedly sold a ‘stolen Dell laptop’ worth Rs 49,000 on Paytm website. The police have registered an FIR at Sector 50 station based on the man’s complaint.

Gaurav Saroha , the complainant, said he bought the laptop on PayTM in May. PayTM Mall spokesperson said the matter was being investigated and appropriate action will be taken against the seller.

“I had ordered the laptop on May 24 for Rs 48,999 and received it on May 29. While activating the new laptop, the Windows operating system stopped installing at the last stage and showed an error message. I gave me an error message every time I tried,” Saroha said.

He contacted the Dell customer care. “After numerous calls to Dell, I was told that the laptop in question was stolen. They said that since the previous owner had complained to them about the theft, the Windows registration was blocked and the laptop was reported as stolen on all major websites. They also said the warranty had also expired in January,” Saroha said. Dell also gave in written to him about laptop being stolen.

Saroha called the Paytm customer care to complain.

“After a long hold, the executive asked me to return the laptop. I said I haven’t placed any return request and just wanted to know how to activate the laptop,” Saroha said.

They asked him to contact Dell. “Within two days of the call, Paytm sent a delivery executive to my home who said he was there to collect the laptop.”

“I had not requested any return and I told so to the executive. I contacted my brother, who is a lawyer,” Saroha said. His brother was not in the city and returned to Gurgaon this week. They then filed a complaint on Wednesday.

Inspector Surender Phogat, SHO, Sector 50 police station, said though such complaints are usually sent to the cyber cell, this case was different.

“Here, the complainant has proof that the laptop was a stolen one. Since it is a case of a stolen laptop being sold, we registered the case against unknown persons,” Phogat said.

The FIR has been registered under IPC section 420 (cheating) and 406 (criminal breach of trust).

Paytm Mall spokesperson said, “We consider trust to be one of the most important factors for individuals conducting business on our platform. We recently delisted over 85,000 sellers and six logistics partners as they were unable to offer a superior consumer experience. We are already investigating the concern and will ensure necessary support is offered to the customer and appropriate action is taken against the seller.”